Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

so Dollansky gets sent off in a series of rolls, the hub/wheel assembly takes a direct shot to the surface and becomes a projectile, clearly a situation not even the tethers will disable, now, I understand being proactive on safety but some people think these are the complete answer to fans safety (like its the only thing that makes sence or exhists), now how about the  fencing  that becomes a projectile? 

there is no way to make auto racing a completely safe sport. If u focus on 1 area another area come up & bite u. I am not totally sold on the tethers as we have seen the broken front axle flailing around the cockpit area after impact.

We only learn from past experiances, some good & some tragic, but certainly safety is at the fore front of the sport more so now than ever..

Did Dollansky's car have all 3 pieces of the tether system installed (left and right axle tethers and kingpin to kingpin tether)?  And where exactly did the hub/wheel assembly break?

The front axle stayed completely intact. What broke was the hub. It broke the area around which the wheel was bolted and flew over the fence still bolted tightly to the wheel.

Thanks RandyV.

I think my post is to enlighten those that believe the tethers are the entire answer to a truely debatable topic, many have belived the tethers will produce more safety rather than harm, as a driver I recently endured the expence of $600 to install "some" if not "more" safety devices that will not directly effect me(as a driver) now,  granted , every inccident has its motion, ,a different motion,and outcome, some more horrific,  or lucky , than others ,  I am employed in a trade that developes entirely around convienance, nessessity, and safety , many of our devices are incorporated around the concept that incident may occur, that being said, many of our devices routinely are tested with little to no praise on thier effectiveness for tragity, on the same note, im continously approched on the inconvieiance of such items , its a delicate balance to maintain the integrtity of the "magority rules", in the hands of life nothing is impractical,  it simply becomes a crapshoot if one vulnerable superseeds another, my post is to raise the awareness the tethers are NOT a convincing fassion of safety, IMO it becomes a harmfull percentage that one may fall victom too. the bottom line is, the tethers in this incedent did nothing to contain the wheel assembly, a kingpin tether system  (phase 2) did nothing to help this issue either, im not 100% sure the majority rules in this system if not putting the driver in harms way , again im not completly against them, but for those of you that believe they dont cause another hazzard, are just not looking past your noses. 

How did the tethers cause another hazzard?

apparently a wheel has never come off a racecar before in his experiences.....

Is the tether a be-all end-all safety device?  of course it's not and I've never seen anyone say that it is. 

But some on here don't look at anything other than "well, now another part is going away from the car instead and that axle, and that axle isn't flying through the air away from me which is my only concern".

While others see it as "that very large piece of debris that has flown through the air, over fences and HARMED bystanders in the infield, a Safety Crew Worker (over 100 feet away no less), and nearly hurt a spectator is now contained.  That smaller piece by the wheel came loose, but it's a lot smaller and isn't a 4 foot long piece of steel that could impale someone and it doesn't seem to travel nearly as far through the air.  Maybe the manufacturer will look into why that point broke, substandad weld?  Poor Quality of steel?  certain angle of hit?"

My personal opinion is that the tethers holding the axle in place now show a weak point that has been there all along and the Engineers and manufacturing personel that produce that part will get to work making that break point more rigorous and acceptable to more "load" prior to it breaking.

In the manufacturing world, that break point should became the focus of the Quality Control Team.  Maybe they can make it stronger by using some different methods, or a different guage steel on the axle or even "gasp" having some controls in place to make sure every part is produced exactly the same.  But, why we would we want that?  Oh wait, everything else in the world is produced EXACTLY that way.  The weak points are what get attention to "build a better mousetrap".  Once that is no longer the weak point, they move on to the next thing that shows up in testing and real world application.